What's the Deal With the Bonkers Steering Wheel in Nissan's New IDS Concept?

This is the IDS Concept, Nissan's take on a self-driving electric car. Stylish and futuristic, the concept has two drive modes. In Manual Drive, all the seats will face forward and the heads-up display will show typical things like route info. The ambient interior lighting is blue, which Nissan believes will make the driver concentrate.

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Okay, so it's a car with blue interior lighting. Great.

Sure, that doesn't sound all that revolutionary, but it's what it does when you put it in Piloted Drive that's amazing. The steering wheel retracts into the instrument panel and is replaced by a big flat screen . . . like something out of Transformers, just without the guns.

In this mode, the car handles most of the driving from the on-board AI system, voice commands, and gestures from the driver. Additionally, all four seats rotate slightly to face each other, making the cabin a more social environment. If you care to talk to the people you're driving with, that is.

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What Nissan is proposing is a completely hands-free self-driving car. Without the steering wheel in your lap, a whole new world of possibilities opens up. You can work on your laptop or eat a full meal. But what if you need the steering wheel in an emergency situation? Maybe I've seen too many movies, but I'm quite certain that there will be at least one situation on the road you encounter that requires some kind of snap-decision making.

But, for now, this is very much a concept. Now, if you'll excuse us, watching the wheel retract into the dash is hypnotizing us.